Instagram Begins Blurring Nudity in Messages in Effort to Combat Child Sexual Extortion

Instagram is taking new measures to protect young people from sexual exploitation and exposure by including a feature that will automatically blur nudity in direct messages. In an effort to fight sexual scams and other forms of “image abuse,” the social media platform is testing out new features, according to Instagram’s blog on April 11. The new features aim to make it harder for sexual predators and online criminals to contact teenagers through direct messaging on the platform. Sexual extortion, also referred to as sextortion, works similar to blackmail, where a victim is coerced into sending explicit photos of themselves. Once the photos have been received by the criminals, the victim is then threatened with public exposure unless they provide money or sexual favors in return....